p. 343 | News and Miscellany by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1875

News and Miscellany.

By Editor

—Three hundred and fifty painters are engaged on inside work on the Palace Hotel, at present, in San Francisco.

—It is estimated that in fourteen counties of Illinois the damage by recent storms will reach the enormous aggregate of $12,000,000.

—California expects to produce during the present year 50,000,000 pounds of wool, 15,000,000 gallons of wine, and 45,000,000 bushels of wheat.

—Since the first of January last the population of this State has increased 46,000 by immigration, 68,800 persons having arrived, and only 21,000 departed.

—Advices from Egypt state that the Abyssinians are making active preparations to attack the Egyptians. The Khedive is greatly alarmed, and is sending reinforcements to the frontier.

—Not the least wonderful of the accidents of the terrible inundation of the Garonne is that the river has been swept out of its course—run off the track, as it were—at Mossac, leaving that river town four miles inland.

—Of 9,900 teachers in the Irish National schools, 6,100 are reported to be totally untrained, while even the trained teachers have had on an average only about five months' training. Their salaries are as small as their capabilities.

—The committee who have in charge the examination into the affairs of J. B. Ford & Co., made a report on Saturday, recommending the acceptance of 35 cents on the dollar, in twelve monthly payments to commence Dec. 15. The liabilities are about $210,000.

—The army worms have made their appearance in great numbers on Long Island, and the fields of oats and corn are being destroyed. The worms eat only the green stems, and drop the kernels to the ground, which is thus frequently covered with oats, while the stalk is left standing upright and naked.

—A school in which girls are taught household work suitable to a farm or rural life has been established at Issy, near Paris, under the direction of Mlle. Maurey. In addition to practical farm work suitable for women, the girls are taught to wash and "do up" linen, to sew, to cut and make clothes and dresses. Should not every farm house be such a school?

—Europe has five millions of soldiers all ready for fighting, with fifteen thousand cannon and a million and a quarter of horses; its united fleets consist of 2,039 vessels, manned by 280,000 sailors, and carrying fifteen thousand guns. The cost of these immense armaments is five hundred and sixty millions of dollars annually, three-fifths of the amount being consecrated to the armies.

—The communists of Chicago are making active preparations for a somewhat warlike campaign. The latest that has been developed is that they have purchased a large number of breech-loading muskets, with considerable amunition, and are drilling regularly under command of experienced Prussian officers. Several hundred men are already enrolled, and picnics are frequently held to raise funds to defray expenses. The leaders are the same discontented spirits who have previously figured in communist mobs. They seem determined to redress the imagined wrongs under which they are laboring. As there is a strong militia force in the city very little apprehension is felt.

—Every Californian is shocked to hear of the failure of the Bank of California, and the death, the following afternoon, of its president, Wm. C. Ralston. Mr. Ralston was connected with many of the greatest and most successful business enterprises of the State, was one of the wealthiest men of San Francisco and for years has had control of the leading Banking-house on this coast. The bank failure and Mr. Ralston's sudden death, add another testimony to the uncertainty of all human affairs.

There are many reports as to the reasons of his death. It seems that soon after a Directors' meeting held last Saturday in which he was refused farther control of the Bank, he drove to North Beach, entered a bath house in a sweating condition, and, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the keeper, went into the water. He swam out strongly for two hundred yards, then stopped and was seen to struggle and go under. Boats were dispatched and he was soon brought a shore, but all attempts at restoration were futile.